People and organizations backing things like the Dream Act and support illegal aliens/"undocumented people" being here are upset, declaring the Tea Party has finally outed themselves and their agenda. This side of the debate argues that ads like these only help to demonize Latinos.

The main issue on the table regarding being against legal immigration is the familiar "They're taking our jobs" argument. During this time of high unemployment, of Occupy Wall Street's cries of not being able to find work (while dissenters rather glibly shout, "Get a job!"), Republicans, libertarians, and Tea Partiers are asking "Why let more people in to claim jobs that could be going to citizens who've been here for years, if not since birth?"

Since it's also these people who want to re-write the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, saying that being born here is not going to simply be enough to qualify as a citizen any more (as a measure to weed out "anchor babies"), would this be a step in that direction?

What are your thoughts on the possibility of cutting off the number of people who can legally come into the United States? Even if you aren't American, your opinion on the subject is still valuable.

Considering how badly people view the cutting off of Asian immigration in the 19th century, I don't really see how they can realistically see this as a good idea. It is just another distraction from the real problem, which is that there is not enough job creation going on, and immigration has no bearing on how many jobs a business owner chooses to create.

AstrophelFear will kill your mind and steal your love as sure as anything;Fear will rob you blind and make you numb to others suffering

This only serves to further my belief that the majority of Tea Party supporters are either businesses that profit off of keeping foreigners elsewhere, where they can be paid less for more work, and old racist white people.

I wonder why they haven't at least tried to put a stop to outsourcing jobs like tech support to India and other places. Those are jobs that could easily go to Americans, but the corporations want to pay less for hiring someone in another country all together.

Oh right, because it's a cut for a corporations. Silly me for not realizing.

Yeah... I am waiting on the forced population control ideas next. I mean, clearly they want to control the increase of American citizens since legal immigrants are citizens... so why not go with controlling the birth rates?

Oh... right... because that is a little too obvious on the crazy scale.

Originally posted by ElaraOh... right... because that is a little too obvious on the crazy scale.

Sometimes I wonder what it would be like if we adapted China's one child per couple law. I'm an only child, and I don't plan on having any more than one child should I choose to have one. I identify with Zero Population Growth supporters.

But yeah, as a person who is pro-choice, it would be hypocritical to demand a law regulating people's reproductive habits. Damn quiverfulls, though.

But back to the topic at hand, my mom immigrated here legally from Asia, and is now a citizen. Once again, I find myself saying it would be hypocritical were I to back any law that would limit legal immigrants.

It's like how we don't allow gay marriage and then trying to go back to outlawing inter-racial marriage, I guess.

I stand by the idea that we get rid of outsourcing, though, if we're so concerned about Americans losing jobs. I mean, come on. Tech support is something college students here could be doing.

Can we just reduce the reproduction habits of MY family then? I will have NO problem starting a ballot for that one...

(Yes, this ties into immigration ideas) I agree with the outsourcing idea though. I mean, I can understand WHY companies would want to SAVE money. I've always kinda attempted a little social experiment of making this an either/or thing though. Like, I'm not for taxing the rich more. I'm just not. And this is coming from a dirt poor democrat. I think we have a strong majority of people in this country who think corruption and wealth are one in the same....there's good and bad EVERYwhere. The people who held me up at gunpoint at GameStop, for example, are most likely just as poor as I am, and if not, the discrepancy isn't much. But I do NOT think that money earned should be taken from ANYone, just for the sake of taking it.

How this ties into immigration. "They Took Our Jobs" IS a problem, no matter HOW funny South Park made it. Why? Because no matter WHAT you tell the majority of this country, they believe it to be true. In some cases is it true? Honestly, yes. But it's not their fault. They're given shit jobs when the come over. Why? Because we have this "American Dream" to hold over their head...are things perfect here? Hell no. Do we still have it better than most of these immigrants have it in their home countries? Absolutely. And let's face it, there's certain jobs that would be more difficult to hand to someone who was born and raised here...the cycle goes on.

So this mentality of giving immigrants certain jobs because "Oh, they'll do it, and no one else will." if it's anyone's fault, it's just as much the fault of those already here. So there is no "THEY took our jobs." We're giving them too!

So...like Nelrith said...outsourcing is a problem. So, instead of taxing the wealthy for the sake of taxing them, therefore they don't need to "save" money, we should adapt a "With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility." mentality. I know, giving to the poor, supporting our country's welfare system could be viewed as such, I suppose, but, I don't think those things REALLY help. It should be the responsibility of our own citizens to maintain a higher standard of excellence and growth for our own country, as a whole. There should be certain outsourcing laws. I don't think that's an infringement upon our freedom. The more money these companies make, the less outsourcing they should be allowed to do. In turn, it'll provide more jobs for our citizens, which will at least dent, MAJORLY this problem with immigrants this country seems to have.

Side note, am I all for cracking down in illegal immigration? Fuck yeah. But legal immigration? That's just wrong. On so many levels.

AstrophelFear will kill your mind and steal your love as sure as anything;Fear will rob you blind and make you numb to others suffering

Originally posted by Katana Like, I'm not for taxing the rich more. I'm just not. And this is coming from a dirt poor democrat. I think we have a strong majority of people in this country who think corruption and wealth are one in the same....there's good and bad EVERYwhere. The people who held me up at gunpoint at GameStop, for example, are most likely just as poor as I am, and if not, the discrepancy isn't much. But I do NOT think that money earned should be taken from ANYone, just for the sake of taking it.

You honestly think it's about punishing them?

Disappointing.

For the government to actually do things, money is needed. The rich can much more readily afford it than the poor. $2,000 out of the income of someone who makes 20,000 a year is a lot of money, money that may be needed for medical bills, home emergencies, car maintenance, kids' college fund, whatever. $200,000 out of the income of someone who makes $2,000,000 a year? Proportionally the same, but the millionaire is still left with $1,800,000 - you can't honestly say he's suffering. Despite this, many of the richest people in the country pay proportionally lower taxes than their own secretaries - this has been documented and even admitted by some of the people in question.

An argument could be made for this being due to asinine loopholes, but closing those loopholes would be raising their taxes indirectly anyway, if perhaps only to what the "advertised" tax rate is, and either way the result is the same - people throwing ridiculous amounts of money at politicians to try to preserve their tax breaks because throwing a couple hundred thousand dollars away in bribes is still cheaper.

To put the proportional taxing argument into perspective here, let's bump our numbers to 20%. To raise twenty billion dollars off people who make 20k/yr at this rate, it would take five million people. Or you could just tax Warren Buffett and you've got that covered. And he's certainly left with more than enough money to live comfortably.

The other options? Cut everything (except the military, because this is America and we can never do that! ), or take even more taxes from those who are actually struggling now.

It's just math.

I'm not disagreeing about the problem of outsourcing, but your argument against taxes is based on a false premise.

KatanaDark Wizard\"She said tonight...come on come on collide...see what I fire feels like..I bet its just like heaven.\"

I never once said it was punishing them. I simply brought up a sliver of the argument and applied it to the topic at hand. (Basically saying that the extra money they could be taxed could be used directly for other things, not just calling it a "tax" but I'll get into that.)

I'm going to make another thread and quote your post, Astrophel. You have a lot of good points, and I was considering making this a topic of it's own anyway, but you're really one of the few who has ever regurgitated back to me something I posted, so I didn't think there was much point if I did it. :p (Yes, I know I ramble, and that makes it difficult to follow. I'm not going emo here. Haha.) Because if I dispute here, or rephrase, because I don't think it was clear what I was trying to say, you still might not agree with me, but at least it'll be less misunderstood...but any who....don't want to stray entirely from this topic.

So, to clarify for the sake of this thread. Part of the issue with this whole immigration bit is this glorified "They Took Our Jobs!!!" mentality. I was suggesting the idea of rather than taxing the wealthiest just to tax them(I KNOW it's for important things, but again, this is a different topic), we come up with something to give incentive to limit outsourcing as much as possible. We all like to SAVE money, rich, poor, everything in the middle...those who became rich through their own intelligence and hard work, who started from the bottom and made their way up, won't just snap out of the "how do I save myself some costs" mentality. Outsourcing answers that question, unfortunately. It may not happen tomorrow, it may not happen anytime soon, sadly, but this taxing the wealthy issue is NOT going to go away. I'm for taking it to a point where it's not a "Well...maybe..." No. Either you pay more dues to your society ANYWAY, or you can save face. (Because that's what Republicans are all about it seems. Does republican mean rich? Not necessarily. But they're the ones against this "big government" idea of everyone chipping in.) Sometimes appealing to one another DOES produce the best results. They're presented with an ultimatum. Either get taxed more, or they see the numbers, and they're then encouraged to to use those numbers to decrease outsourcing instead. (For the sake of keeping this on topic, I'm leaving it at that.)

In turn, the problem of "outsourcing" is a good start toward this immigration problem. And by immigration problem...I mean people being pissed off about other people having a right to be here, despite the fact that they weren't born here. Might not exactly be the "start" but either way, tackling the issue with outsourcing will take a nasty chunk out of this argument at any point.